


the man that got away

by RiverLetheStyx



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: F/M, M/M, focusing on his and whizzer's relationship because i love them, honestly this is basically just jason's pov of the musical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-11-01 00:00:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10910133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiverLetheStyx/pseuds/RiverLetheStyx
Summary: and where's he gone to?





	the man that got away

**Author's Note:**

> im really into falsettos right now
> 
> title and summary come from this video which i listened to a lot while writing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ev6_S1kP9M

Jason’s earliest memory was from he was three years old.  He remembers sitting in the backseat of his dad’s ugly blue 1967 Ford Station Wagon, watching his parents in the front seats.  His father was driving, his mother sitting in the passenger seat looking out the window.  They were probably arguing, but Jason couldn’t remember the exact details.  It was inconsequential anyway, he knew now that their entire marriage had been a sham.  But, he remembered his mother.  He remembered the way the sunlight had shone through the front window and reflected on her hair.

 

Trina was always calm when she and Marvin fought.  She had assumed it was merely a “rough patch,” that they’d work it out, and fall back into the passion they felt before Jason, before their wedding, before the fighting.  Jason would never remember a time when his parents were happily together, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t remember when they were together.

 

And they weren’t happy when they were together.

 

Years later, Jason’s memory gets more vivid.  He can remember exact details of when, where, how, and what his parents fought about.  He could remember Marvin yelling at Trina when dinner wasn’t finished, storming out in a rage and coming back with flowers (roses) later that night.  He remembered Trina melting under the affection, allowing her husband to come running back to her arms with a feeble, fake apology.  It was bound to happen all over again the next week, anyhow.

 

Jason vowed from an early age never to treat his mother, or anyone else for that matter, like Marvin treated Trina.

 

Marvin bought Jason his first chess board when he was eight.  According to Marvin, Jason was finally old enough to understand the convoluted rules and mature enough to develop his own personal strategy to win.  Marvin had fun teaching Jason to play, and it was one of the only memories Jason had of his father being pleasant while still married to his mother.  Jason took to the game quickly, deciding the knight was his favourite piece and sacrificing everything to save both his knights.  He always forced his opponent to play the black pieces, which Marvin was happy to do to gain some bonding time with his son.  Jason was happy to have an opponent, even if Marvin did get upset when he started to lose.  As Jason got better, Marvin became more of a sore loser.  Jason started playing by himself after that.

 

When he was ten, Jason knew the exact moment when Marvin did something so horrible that Trina would never forgive him.  He hadn’t caught his father with another man like his mother had, but he would always remember the look on Trina’s face as she forced Marvin on the street with his hair disheveled and his work shirt unbuttoned.  That was the first time he had seen his mother truly break down -- she ran her fingers through her thick hair rough enough to make Jason think she was attempting to pull it out of her head, her cheeks were stained with tear streaks even though Jason hadn’t seen her cry, and she fled to the kitchen for any form of distraction.  Jason got chocolate cake for breakfast the next morning, a mixed-berry pie for lunch, and his choice of cookies, brownies, and another pie for dinner.  He ignored the flour that had found its way through the house during his mother’s baking spree.

 

When Marvin came home two days later, Trina wouldn’t let him near Jason.  Not that Jason wanted anything to do with his father -- he would prefer his mother, and he wasn’t necessarily upset that his parents were getting a divorce.  Perhaps that was wrong of him.  He was only ten years old, but he had already determined that he loved his mother and would rather be without his father.  Weren’t ten-year-old boys supposed to love their fathers?

 

Jason supposed that rule could change if your father liked kissing other men more than kissing your mother.

 

Marvin never stayed at Trina’s house after that night.  That was something else that Jason had noticed -- Marvin left, and it became “Trina’s house” and “That _boy’s_ apartment.”  His father had left his mother and abandoned him for another man, but he hadn’t heard that man’s name.  Trina only referred to him as “that boy.”  Jason had caught the briefest glimpse of him when Marvin was caught with him, but all he knew was the man had short, brown hair, and looked too young to be dating his father.  He decided that he didn’t care all that much.

 

The first time Jason truly met him was an accident.  Both Marvin and Trina had scheduled meeting with their divorce lawyers when he got off of school on Friday afternoon, and he was supposed to stay with Marvin for the weekend.  Marvin must have decided that a ten-year-old was old enough to take the subway and wander the streets of New York city alone, and that was how Jason found himself staring at a small piece of paper with an address written in his father’s sloppy handwriting in front of a dirty green door with golden numbers declaring it apartment number 56.  He found the spare key under the mat as instructed and let himself in.

 

His initial reaction was that the apartment was too clean, too modernly stylish for his father to be living here.  Then, he remembered that Marvin didn’t live alone.  His _friend_ must be the one cleaning and designing, Jason decided.  He wandered into the small living room, hesitant to touch anything.  Jason felt like a stranger in this place, for good reason, he supposed.  He was a stranger here.  He had never met his father’s friend, had never seen the place his father was currently staying, and now he was here by himself.  He could have entered the wrong apartment and Jason never would have known.  

 

He waited there for half an hour before someone came home.  He was sitting on the edge of his seat, his backpack still hanging limply off his shoulder and his shoes still tied, as if he was ready to run out the door at any second.  Jason looked up at the sound of the door opening, expecting his father.  The person who stood in the doorway instead looked utterly surprised to find a ten-year-old sitting on his couch.

 

“Um,” Jason started, unsure if this was the _man_ he had heard about, or if he genuinely had the wrong apartment.  “Is this apartment 56?  Where Marvin lives with his friend?”

 

The strange man nodded, not looking away from Jason.  “Yes, I’m… Marvin’s friend.  I’m afraid he didn’t mention that you’d be here.  It’s Jason, right?”

 

Jason nodded, relaxing a bit at the comfort that he at least had the right apartment.  “That sounds like my dad.  I’m lucky he told me where the key was.”  He watched the stranger walk around his apartment, hoping for a hint at who the stranger was.  He knew nothing about him, but Jason assumed they would have to quickly get used to each other.

 

The stranger nodded, taking his jacket off and hanging it neatly in the front closet by the door.  He took his shoes off, leaving them on the rack at the bottom of the closet, before walking to the kitchen.  “Do you want anything to drink, Jason?  I’m not sure what time Marvin will be here, he said he has a therapy appointment tonight after the divorce thing.”

 

“Therapy?”  Of all the things Jason knew about his father, that was not one of them.  How long had Marvin been seeing a psychiatrist?  Since he realized he liked men while still married to a woman, Jason assumed.

 

“Yep.  The appointments usually last an hour or two, so I guess he’ll be home around 8 tonight, but who knows?”  The stranger walked out of the kitchen, holding two glasses of water despite Jason never answering his question.  “It’s just us till then.”

 

Jason nodded, accepting the glass when it was offered to him.  He set it on the end table between the couch and the wall after taking a sip, then finally took his backpack off and set it on the couch next to him.  “Do you know how to play chess?”

 

“A little,” the stranger admitted.  “Not as well as you, I’m sure.  I probably haven’t played since I was your age.”

 

Jason reached into his bag for his chess board anyway.  “I’m sure you’re fine.  As long as you’re not as sore a loser as my dad.”

 

The man laughed, and it lit up his face.  Jason thought this man was definitely too good for his father.  “I doubt that’s even possible.  I’ll play with you, if you want.”

 

Jason smiled, setting the board up.  “You can use the black pieces.”

 

“Sounds fine with me.”

 

That was when Jason decided he liked his dad’s new friend.

 

After his mom picked him up on Sunday afternoon, Jason didn’t see his dad or Whizzer for a few weeks.  

 

“ _Whizzer_?”  Jason asked when he had finally learned the other’s name.  “What kind of a name is Whizzer?”

 

“It’s _my_ name, kid, don’t make fun of me!”  Whizzer had laughed, losing at chess yet again but taking it happily.  He was a much better sport than Marvin.

 

Whizzer and Marvin arrived at Trina’s house late on a Friday evening, a few weeks after the divorce was finalized and Marvin officially moved out.  Jason was playing chess by himself when they got there, and Trina answered the door.  Jason could hear her and Marvin arguing before they even walked into the room.

 

Dinner was not the most pleasant family dinner they’d ever experienced, to put it kindly.  Trina ended up taking a liking to Whizzer, or at least pretending that she did.  Her hostility towards Marvin was tangible, hanging thickly in the atmosphere around them.  In the middle of dinner, Whizzer leaned over to Jason and whispered that he was surprised Trina didn’t poison any of the food.

 

Marvin overheard him and refused to finish his plate.

 

A month later, Jason had grown considerably closer to Whizzer.  He and Marvin came for dinner every week or so, Marvin’s attempts to retain his “tight-knit family” nearly destroying the once-nuclear family.  When Trina thought Jason was suffering because of this and she and Marvin decided he needed therapy, Jason had hoped Whizzer would be on his side.

 

He was wrong.

 

At least he was allowed to suffer through therapy in the comfort of his own home, he supposed.  He liked Mendel.  He seemed like a good man, even though he wasn’t a very good psychiatrist.  He noticed something going on between him and his mother, and he thought it was good for them.  Jason couldn’t remember a time he had seen his mother so happy.

 

He didn’t remember a time when his father was so angry, either.

 

Jason was there when Marvin hit Trina.  He was ten-years-old, sitting in the living room, playing chess while his mother and step-father-to-be figured out wedding plans on the couch.  He was there when Marvin barged in, followed by a quiet Whizzer who stayed toward the back and tried to blend in with the background.  He was there as voices were raised, as Mendel tried to mediate, as Whizzer tried to warn.  He was there when his father raised his hand, and he watched Trina flinch away from him.

 

To be quite honest, Jason was amazed it hadn’t happened sooner.

 

Marvin was thrown out swiftly after that, by both Whizzer and Mendel.  Whizzer stayed behind, trying to help Trina as best he could.  Jason couldn’t be sure when he would see his father next, and he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to again, but he knew that he wanted Whizzer to stick around.  He wanted this man who helped his mother to be a presence in his life, and he did.

 

Whizzer stuck around.  Whizzer lived with Trina and Mendel and Jason for a couple weeks, till he gathered enough savings to get a studio apartment on his own.  Trina and Mendel hired him as the photographer at their wedding.  Jason decided he loved Whizzer, and thought of him fondly.  He stayed with Whizzer while his mother and new step-dad went on a short honeymoon.  He never called Whizzer “dad,” but he was certainly more of one than Marvin.

 

It probably was another six months before he saw Marvin again.  He showed up one day, knocking at the door.  Trina answered and almost didn’t let him in, but he apologized.  Jason heard his father genuinely apologize to his mother for the first time in his life.  He was eleven now, and had never heard his father say “I’m sorry” and mean it as much as he did right now.

 

Trina allowed him some custody over Jason after that.  Jason would visit on weekends, and live with Trina during the week.  Marvin could have Jason for Thanksgiving and two days of Hanukkah, Trina got him for the other six days of Hanukkah and for Passover.

 

Marvin never apologized to Whizzer though, so Jason had to find his own way to continue to see his third father.  On Fridays, when Jason would travel to Marvin’s, he took a detour.  Marvin wouldn’t get home till 5 or 6 if he was lucky, so Jason took the subway to the other side of town.  He would knock on Whizzer’s door at 4 PM sharp, and Whizzer would yell “The door’s open!” and Jason would let himself in.  He left his shoes and jacket by the door, walking into the apartment to spend half an hour with Whizzer before he had to get the next subway back to Marvin’s.

 

Jason almost wished Marvin would call Whizzer and apologize, just so he could spend more time with him.  He got to see Mendel for five days a week, Marvin for two days, it didn’t seem fair that he only saw Whizzer for 30 minutes.

 

Once Jason turned 12, Whizzer encouraged him to join the baseball league.  He was already considering doing so, but Whizzer gave him the final push to do it.  He gave Jason his entire baseball card collection for his birthday, which Jason decided was the best gift he’d received since his first chess board.  He cherished that collection.  So, when Jason asked him to come to the final game of the season, how could Whizzer deny him?

 

Jason’s family had grown civil around each other while Whizzer was away.  Marvin and Trina could now talk and sit next to each other without it ending in a fight, Marvin made a few friends that were considered family, and Mendel and Marvin didn’t scream at each other over who’s family was who’s.  Whizzer almost missed the old Marvin, but after meeting the new one, he decided he much preferred Marvin in 1981.  When Marvin asked for his number at the baseball game, he wrote it down and gave it to him.

 

Jason found that he had nothing to complain about when Whizzer moved back in with Marvin the following week.  He got to spend more time with him, which was what he was hoping for to begin with.  Whizzer started picking Jason up from school on Friday afternoons and taking him out for ice cream before Marvin came home from work -- trying to create a new tradition that was unique to the two of them.  Jason always tried to get something new, and Whizzer always got an Oreo flurry made with chocolate ice cream.

 

Charlotte and Cordelia joined them for dinner on Sundays when Trina and Mendel came to get him, making another new family dinner tradition.  The dinners became like a potluck, with each couple bringing a passing dish.  Jason once asked to help Whizzer in the kitchen (who had grown considerably more comfortable cooking during his time spent single), and quickly became Whizzer’s “apprentice.”  He mainly did the things Whizzer didn’t _like_ doing, which meant Jason spent the majority of his time in the kitchen handling raw meat.  Whizzer didn’t like the cold feeling it left underneath his nails, and Jason was young and eager enough to not be phased by the strange sensation.

 

They played chess while waiting for their dish to finish cooking.  Whizzer improved considerably during each game, but was never quite good enough to beat Jason.  There was one time where he had Jason in check for three turns, but Marvin hovering over his shoulder had shared that Jason had allowed him to get so close to winning.  

 

Whizzer played more defensively after that.  He had enough dignity to lose to a twelve-year-old, but he had too much pride to win by Jason allowing him to.  Jason still wouldn’t play with Marvin, so Whizzer tried his best to improve in order to be a worthy challenge for Jason.  Jason was thankful for that.  Whizzer continued to be a better opponent with each game they played, even if his strategy switched from offensive to defensive.

 

It was a Friday afternoon when Jason heard that Whizzer was in the hospital.  He was waiting at the corner where he usually met his third dad -- he had been waiting for almost half an hour.  Whizzer sometimes was five or ten minutes late, but never this late.  When he saw Mendel arrive in Trina’s ‘67 station wagon she won in the divorce, he knew something was wrong.  Jason was a smart kid, it wasn’t his fault that his parents seems to continuously forget that he was.

 

“What’s wrong?  Where’s Whizzer?  He’s supposed to be here,” Jason said as he climbed into the passenger seat, looking at his stepdad.  “He’s never been this late.  Is he okay?”

 

“About that,” Mendel started, not meeting Jason’s eyes as he pulled out of the terrible temporary parking job.  “Your mother and father didn’t want to worry you, but Whizzer would want you to know.  And besides, you’d find out sooner or later.  It’s a shitty thing to keep secret.”

 

“What is it?”  Jason asked again, trying to pry out the answer.

 

“Whizzer was admitted to the hospital this morning.  It’s probably nothing serious, but they’re keeping him overnight for observation, so you’re going to spend the weekend with me and your mother.  Everything will probably be fine by next week.  It should be fine.  Why wouldn’t it be fine?  Everything will be alright.”

 

Everything was not alright.

 

Jason spent that weekend with his mom and Mendel.  He spent the weekend after with his mom and Mendel, too.  He spent every weekend for a month with his mom and Mendel.  He was tired of it.  He knew Whizzer was still in the hospital, they hadn’t been able to keep Jason from visiting him, but wanted things to go back to how they were.

 

Jason wasn’t sure when the adults in his life decided to continue the charade, but it couldn’t have been for his benefit that they did it.  They knew that Jason knew that Whizzer wasn’t okay.  They had to have known that Jason was smart enough to watch his third father fade into an echo of the man he used to be.  He started letting Whizzer win at chess, hoping the satisfaction of winning alone would be enough to help him get better.  If not that, then perhaps the anger at being allowed to win.  Maybe Whizzer would get mad enough that he would regain the energy to fight with Jason for his right to lose with dignity.

 

He never really fought, though.  He never got satisfaction from winning, either, he simply looked sadly at the white king as he surrounded it.  Jason let him play with the white pieces after that, his last attempt at using chess to make Whizzer well again.

 

It never really worked.

 

When Trina and Mendel came to him with the suggestion of cancelling his bar mitzvah, he was relieved to know they weren’t living in some bizarre fantasy world.  He was, however, upset at the suggestion of having the bar mitzvah _without Whizzer_.  The man was his third father, and Jason was offended at the mere thought of having a celebration without him, or while he was alone and miserable in a hospital bed.  He wanted Whizzer there, happy and healthy, with more baseball cards to add to Jason’s collection and comments about the guest’s fashion sense that would make him laugh.  He wanted Whizzer to laugh again.

 

He wanted Whizzer at the bar mitzvah.  He wouldn’t have one without him.  Jason wasn’t sure how, when, or where it would happen, but he was determined not to have his bar mitzvah unless Whizzer was in attendance.

 

And that was how he came to the brilliant idea of having his bar mitzvah in Whizzer’s hospital room.  The celebration was about family, wasn’t it?  He didn’t need a gigantic party, he needed his family there.  And Whizzer was his family.

 

Jason hoped that, in the end, it was a good final memory for Whizzer to have.  He hoped that Whizzer truly enjoyed spending his final day at Jason’s bar mitzvah.

 

The last conversation Jason had with Whizzer, just the two of them, wasn’t very long.  Whizzer had somehow managed to convince everyone to leave them alone (“No one can deny me anything when I play the ‘I’m dying’ card,” he had laughed when he told Jason).  Jason had brought ice cream as requested from the Dairy Queen between his school and the hospital, letting Whizzer hold his slowly-melting Oreo Blizzard with chocolate ice cream.  Whizzer probably only had the appetite for two or three bites, and he certainly wouldn’t be able to keep it down, but Charlotte wasn’t around to stop him and no one else had the balls to.  Marvin didn’t even fight with Whizzer anymore.

 

Whizzer watched Jason as he finished his ice cream, today’s was cookie dough with brownie added, letting his own melt.  Jason leaned back in the visitor’s chair when he finished, the empty cup sitting on the table between him and the wall.

 

“Why did you wanna talk to me alone?  Are we gonna talk about the stupid charade the others are continuing to play?”

 

Whizzer laughed, the first genuine laugh Jason had seen from him in days.  “In a way, I suppose.  I wanted to thank you.”

 

“Thank me?”

 

“You’re the only one who hasn’t lied to my fucking face.  Every day they come in here, smile and wave, and say something like ‘you’re getting better every day!’  It’s obvious that I’m _not_ getting better, that I won’t _ever_ get better.  You came in earlier and said ‘gee, you look awful.’  No one’s told me that since I was admitted.  Thank you.”

 

Jason wasn’t sure how to reply, so he never did.  His dad came back in the room within five minutes, and his last time spent alone with Whizzer was over just as quickly as it had begun.

 

Whizzer’s favorite ice cream had to be thrown away.

 

The funeral was too quiet for a man who was so boisterous.  Hardly anyone came, one or two of Whizzer’s friends from high school, all of Jason’s family, a handful of people Jason didn’t recognize and didn’t bother to talk to.  If they weren’t important enough for his third dad to introduce them, then they weren’t important enough to talk to now that he had died.

 

The burial was even less than that.  The only ones who went to the graveyard was the family: Marvin, Trina, Mendel, Charlotte, Cordelia, and Jason himself.  Whenever there’s a funeral and burial in the movies, the weather is always dreary.  The clouds hang mere inches over your head and threaten to pour rain at any moment.  In reality, it was sunny, partly-cloudy with a low temperature of 63 degrees Fahrenheit.  Jason hated it.

 

The casket was closed when they finally made it to the site of his grave.  Jason wasn’t sure whether he was relieved or disappointed -- he hated seeing Whizzer like that, but he knew he would never get to see him again.  

 

Marvin had brought a bouquet.  He set the ten blood red roses on top of the casket while the rest of the family took five steps back, letting Marvin say his goodbyes in peace.  Jason still hated it.  He hated everything about today.  He hated everything that had happened since Whizzer started feeling sick.

 

When his dad was slowly pulled away from the grave, crying into Trina’s shoulder, Jason approached.

 

“Hey, dad,” he sat by the headstone, looking down.  “I know I never really called you that when you were alive.  I should’ve.  It was wrong of me not to.  Anyway, I thought you might want this.”  Out of his pocket, Jason pulled the two white knights from his first chess board, gently placing them in the bouquet Marvin had brought.  “Maybe you’ll get better at chess and actually be able to beat me someday.  That would be fun, wouldn’t it?”

  
Jason wasn’t sure how long he sat there before Trina and Mendel took his hands and walked him to the car.

**Author's Note:**

> considering writing a second chap focusing more on jason and marvin, so keep watch if you're interested


End file.
